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Orchard Oriole | Icterus spurius
Tuintroepiaal | Turpial castaño
The Orchard Oriole is the smallest oriole in North America. It breeds in the eastern and central United States and winters from Mexico to northern South America. The Caribbean lies mostly outside its migration route; only in the west, on Cuba and San Andrés, does it appear with some regularity.
Voice
The call is a dry, short chuck and a rattling chatter. The song is a rapid, varied series of whistles and chattering notes, often ending in a falling, harsh element; rarely heard in winter.
Recording: Étienne Leroy — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
15–18 cm, small and compact for an oriole, with a fairly short tail and a thin, slightly decurved bill. The adult male is black on the head, throat, back and tail and deep chestnut on the breast, belly, shoulder and rump, with a white wing bar. The female is olive-green above and greenish yellow below, with greyish wings and two white wing bars. The first-year male resembles the female but has black lores and a black throat.
Confusion species
The female Baltimore Oriole Icterus galbula is larger, with a thicker bill and more orange than greenish yellow below. Females and young birds may also suggest tanagers such as the female Summer Tanager Piranga rubra, which is larger, with a thick, pale bill and no white wing bars. Immature Jamaican Orioles Icterus leucopteryx are larger and have a white wing patch rather than bars.
Habitat
Semi-open country with broadleaf trees: forest edges, dry forest, coastal woodland, plantations, parks and gardens. In winter often in flowering trees, where it takes nectar and insects; also fruit.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation types of the Caribbean.
Range and movements
On San Andrés a regular passage migrant and winter visitor. On Cuba a rare passage migrant and winter visitor, mainly in the west. Elsewhere a vagrant, with records from the Bahamas, the Cayman Islands, Jamaica, Hispaniola and Puerto Rico among others. Breeds in the eastern and central United States, southern Canada and northern Mexico; winters from Mexico through Central America to northern Colombia and north-western Venezuela.
- Summer visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- Winter visitor (c. Apr–Sep)
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
The best chance is during migration in August–September and March–April in western Cuba and on San Andrés, in flowering trees along forest edges and in gardens. Females and young birds are often overlooked among warblers.
Conservation status
Not globally threatened. The population is large and declining slightly in parts of the breeding range.
Scientific name
Icterus spurius | (Linnaeus, 1766)
Linnaeus described the species in 1766 as O[riolus] spurius; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Icterus was introduced in 1760 by Brisson. Icterus is from Ancient Greek ikteros, a yellow bird usually taken to be the golden oriole, the sight of which was thought to cure jaundice. spurius is Latin for 'false, bastard'; the bird was first thought to be an aberrant form of the Baltimore Oriole. The specimen the first description was based on came from South Carolina.